Dr.D. Sudha. M.

D
Professor
Department of Physiology
SBMCH
 At the end of the session the students must
be able to –
 Describe the visual pathway with suitable
schematic labeled diagram.
 Explain the visual defects produced by
lesions at different levels of visual pathway.
 Describe the responses of retinal neurons to
photic stimulation.
 Describe the topographical arrangement in
LGB.
 List the visual cortical areas and their
functions.
Three types of cones:
 L or R, most sensitive to red light (570 nm)
 M or G, most sensitive to green light (530 nm)
 S or B, most sensitive to blue light (430 nm)

 Color blindness results from missing cone type

(s)
 If you stimulate all 3 types of cones about
equally the result is white or no color.
 There are three primary colors: red, green and blue
 Any color can be produced by mixing various proportions
of theses three colors.
 The primary colors when mixed in equal proportions
produce white color.
 Cones are receptors for color vision.
 The information about color sensation is
processed at different levels of the visual
pathway.
 The color perceived by a person is determined
by the type, number and degree of cone
stimulation as well as the number and pattern
of action potentials in the neural pathways.
 There are two theories of color vision:
i) Pigment theory
ii) Opponent theory
 Pigment Theory-
This theory is also known as Young-Helmholtz
theory as it was proposed in 1801 by Thomas
Young and later modified by Hermann von
Helmholtz.
It is also known as Retinal or Trichromatic
theory.
1. Tri chromatic theory (retinal)
-Young- Helmhotz theory
-postulates the existence of 3 types of cones

 Red sensitive cone pigment (erythrolab) L

(long wavelength - 560 nm)
 Green sensitive cone pigment (chlorolab) M
(medium wavelength - 530 nm)
 Blue sensitive cone pigment (cyanolab) S
(short wavelength - 420 nm)

 Each type of cone pigment can absorb a wide range of

wavelengths
 A particular color (light of a fixed wavelength) produces
different levels of stimulation in various cones.
2. Opponent Theory
 This theory is also known as Hering’s theory of
color vision as it was proposed by Hering.
 It is based on his observation that there is no
greenish-red or bluish-yellow color.
 The red and green colors oppose each other, and
the blue and yellow colors are opposed.
 The ganglion cells, the cells of the LGB and the
neurons of the visual cortex show color opponent
property.
 Theganglion cells and the cells of LGB are single-
opponent type.
 There are two subtypes
 Thecells of the visual cortex are double-
opponent type.
 They are of two types
 Arise in rods and
cones
 Transmitted to the
bipolar cells
 Convey the
sensation to
ganglion cells
 Ganglion cells
congregate to form
the optic nerve
 Comes out through
optic disk
 RETINA: A VERTICAL LINE THROUGH THE
FOVEA CENTRALIS DIVIDES THE RETINA
INTO A NASAL HALF & TEMPORAL HALF.

 A HORIZONTAL LINE THROUGH THE FOVEA

DIVIDES THE RETINA INTO AN UPPER HALF
& LOWER HALF.

 THUS THERE ARE 4QUADRANTS

 VISUAL FIELD: EACH EYE’S VISUAL FIELD CAN
BE DIVIDED INTO 4 QUADRANTS WITH THE
FIXATION POINT AT THE CENTRE

 THENASAL FIELD STIMULATES THE TEMPORAL

RETINA& THE TEMPORAL FIELD STIMULATES THE
NASAL RETINA

 EACH MONOCULAR VISUAL FIELD IS ALSO DIVIDED

INTO 2 HALVES viz LEFT HALF & RIGHT HALF
each half having 2 QUADRANTS
 Impulses from retina pass to optic nerve –
optic chiasm (fibers from nasal halves of
retina cross to opposite side) – optic tracts –
synapse in lateral genicular body –
geniculocalcarine fibers – pass through optic
radiation or geniculocalcarine tract – primary
visual cortex in calcarine fissure or medial
aspect of occipital lobe.
 In addition to lateral genicular body, fibers from
optic tract also pass to:
 - suprachiasmatic nucleus of hypothalamus for
controlling circadian rhythms;
 - pretectal nuclei – for control of fixation of eyes
on objects of importance and for pupillary light
reflex;
 - superior colliculus – for control of bilateral
simultaneous movements of two eyes;
 - pulvinar – forms secondary visual pathway.
 Corpus callosum causes exchange of visual
information between right and left hemispheres.
 Begins at the Retina & is Composed of
 1) OPTIC NERVE
 2) OPTIC CHIASMA
Parietal Dorsal
visual Stream Striate
cortex cortex

 3) OPTIC TRACT
(V1)
LGN
Thalamus
 4) LATERAL GENICULATE NUCLEUS
 5) OPTIC RADIATION
 6) CALCARINE CORTEX
Extrastriate
Eye Optic cortex
Ventral
nerve Temporal Stream
visual
cortex
1)Optic disc
 Collection of nerve fibers that
transmit AP
2)Optic Nerve
 Ipislateral nasal nerve (same
eye)
 Ipsilateral temporal nerve (same
eye)
3)Optic chiasma
 Nasal nerves crosses to go to the
opposite side of the brain
DECASSATION
4)Optic Tract
 Ipislateral temporal nerve (same
eye)
 Contaletral nasal nerve (other
eye)
5) Lateral geniculonate Body
 The LGN contains a topographic
representation of what the retina “sees”.
 This retinotopic map is sent to the visual
cortex.
 Has 6 laminae. Laminae 1&2 are Magnocellular
(achromatic,Y), Laminae 3,4,5&6 are
Parvocellular (chromatic,X)
Contralateral NASAL fibres project to
1,4 &6
Ipsilateral TEMPORAL fibres project to
2,3 &5

6)Optic Radiation
 From LGN to visual cortex
 Ipislateral temporal nerve (same eye)
 Contralateral nasal nerve (other eye)
 7)Primary visual cortex
Area 17 (=Primary visual area)
- Concerned with the
appreciation of visual
sensations.
Area18(=Secondary visual
area/visual association area)
- Concerned with
correlation and integration of
visual sensations.
Area 19 (=Occipital eye field)
- Concerned with
movement of the eye.
DIVERGENCE in Visual Pathway:
Optic nerve – 1 million
Geniculocalcarine tract – 2
million
Visual cortex – 1000 million
 LESION of OPTIC NERVE
:UNILATERAL ANOPIA or BLINDNESS IN
THAT EYE
 LESION OF OPTIC CHIASMA:
BITEMPORAL HETERONYMOUS HEMIANOPIA
ie different sides of monocular visual field
of the 2 eyes
 LESION OF OPTIC TRACT:
CONTRALATERAL HOMONYMOUS
HEMIANOPIA ie same sides of monocular
visual field of the 2 eyes
 LESION ofVENTRAL or LOWER
FIBRES OF OPTIC RADIATION:
Lesion of Temporal Lobe damaging optic
radiation causes CONTRALATERAL UPPER
HOMONYMOUS QUADRANTANOPIA
 LESION ofDORSAL or UPPER
FIBRES OF OPTIC RADIATION:
Lesion of Parietal Lobe damaging
underlying fibres causes CONTRALATERAL
LOWER HOMONYMOUS QUADRANTANOPIA
 LESION OF PRIMARY VISUAL CORTEX:
CONTRALATERAL HOMONYMOUS HEMIANOPIA
WITH MACULAR SPARING.
 Macular vision sparing occurs because
a) Macula is BILATERALLY REPRESENTED
b) Macula has a large area of representation &
only widespread lesion can cause loss of
macular vision
c) Region of macular representation has a
collateral blood supply from middle or
anterior cerebral & therefore in posterior
cerebral artery thrombosis macula is
spared
 Ability of human eye to discriminate
between point sources of light is called visual
acuity.
 Normally a person with vision acuity 1,0 can
differentiate two point objects, which lay
under the angle 1 minute from distance 5 m.
The topics:
• An overview of the basic
elements of the visual
system
• Processing of visual
information through
various steps until it
reaches the cortex.
• Two main visual processing
pathways in the cerebral
cortex
• How information from
different senses, such as
vision and hearing, are
The Retina
• The retina lies at the back of the eye
• Retinal tissue is derived from neural tissue during
embryological development
• The retina acts as an information processor, much like
the rest of the brain.
Photoreceptors
• Visual processing begins in the retina with
the division of the sensory receptors into
rods and cones – photoreceptor cells
• There are approximately 120 million rods
and 6 million cones in the human eye.
• Both rods and cones contain pigments that
absorb light.
• When photons of light are absorbed, a
cascade of chemical changes inside the
photoreceptors leads to changes in
membrane polarization and the release of
neurotransmitter, signaling to the next
layer of cells within the eye.
• Therefore, rods and cones take light
energy and transform it into the
electrochemical energy used in the
nervous system.
Photoreceptors
• The rods and cones differ
in three main ways.
• First, they contain
different pigments, which
makes their response to
light differ.
• The rods contain just one
pigment (rhodopsin), which
is sensitive to very small
amounts of light.
• In broad daylight, this
pigment becomes
saturated and the rod
system no longer functions.
At that time, processing is
Photoreceptors
• There are three different types of
cones, each containing a different
pigment.
• The three types of cone pigment are
sensitive to wavelengths in different
portions of the light spectrum: short-
wavelength, medium-wavelength, and
long-wavelength light.
• Short-,medium-, and long-wavelength
cone pigments are most sensitive to
light that we perceive as blue, green,
and red, respectively.
• It is the pattern of activity across
these three types of receptors that
ultimately enables color vision.
 Visual Processing
Photoreceptors
• Second, the
distribution of
rods and cones
across the retina
also differs.
• Cones are packed
more densely in
the center of the
retina (a region
known as the
fovea), whereas
rods are
distributed more
in the periphery.
Photoreceptors
 Finally, rods and cones are hooked up to the retina’s
output layer of cells (ganglion cells), in somewhat
different ways.
 Many rods feed into each ganglion cell, whereas only
a few cones feed into each ganglion cell.
Photoreceptors
• The differences in how
rods and cones are wired
up to other cells is partly
what gives the rod and
cone systems different
properties
• The rod system is more
useful under low light
levels, such as at night.
• However, it is less
sensitive to fine details.
Because so many rods
feed into one ganglion
cell, information about
the precise location of the
Photoreceptors
• By having less summation across
multiple photoreceptors, the cone
system preserves more fine-
grained information about where
on the retina light has been
detected.
• However, it cannot function under
low light conditions (because the
summation of information from the
cones is not sufficient to make a
ganglion cell fire).
• Thus, the rod and cone systems
have evolved to serve different
aspects of vision.
Ganglion Cells
 Whereas the rods and
cones are the “input”
part of the retina, the
ganglion cells are the
“output,” sending
information along from
the eye to the brain
 The ganglion cell bodies
are located in the retina,
and their axons stretch
out from the retina
toward the brain,
forming the optic nerve.
Ganglion Cells
• Retinal ganglion cells come in
two main types
1. M (midget) cells
2. P (parasol) cells

• M cells are tuned to detect

rapid motion.
• P cells, in contrast, preserve
color information that is coded
by the cone system.
• M and P cells send their
output to different destinations
within the brain.
Pathways from the Retina
to the Brain
• There are two main
destinations for visual
information that travels out
of the eye along the optic
nerve:
1. the superior colliculus
(midbrain region)
2. the lateral geniculate
nucleus (in the thalamus,
which then extends to
primary visual cortex).
• In addition, minor projections
extend to other brain regions
(the suprachiasmatic nucleus
Pathways from the Retina
to the Brain
The Tectopulvinar Pathway
• The tectopulvinar path
allows people to orient
quickly to important
visual information.
• This path is very fast-
acting and is especially
sensitive to motion and
appearances of novel
objects in the visual
periphery.
• It receives most of its
input from M ganglion
cells.
Pathways from the Retina
to the Brain
The Tectopulvinar Pathway
• It is also a site for integration of the
auditory and visual senses. Some
individual neurons within deep layers
of the superior colliculus are
responsive to both auditory and visual
inputs in a synergistic way.
• From the superior colliculus, the
tectopulvinar pathway extends
“upstream” to the pulvinar nucleus in
the thalamus and to cortical areas
that govern eye and head movements.
• The superior colliculus also sends
projections “downstream” to
brainstem areas that control eye
muscles.
Pathways from the Retina to the Brain
The Geniculostriate Pathway
• Approximately 90% of optic nerve fibers project to the
geniculostriate pathway.
• Through this path, we are able to perceive color and all the fine-
grained features of objects.
• The axons in the optic nerve terminate in the lateral geniculate
nucleus (in the thalamus).
• From there, the information continues to the primary visual
cortex
The Geniculostriate Pathway
• Information from the right sides of
both retinas is sent on to the LGN on
the right side of the brain, while
information from the left sides of
both retinas is sent on to the LGN on
the left side of the brain.
• The crossover point is called the optic
chiasm.
• Once the optic nerve fibers cross at
the optic chiasm, they are referred to
as the optic tract.
• As a result, the right LGN receives
information only about the left half
of the world (from both eyes)
whereas the left LGN receives
information only about the right half
 Visual Processing
Primary Visual Cortex
(Striate Cortex or V1)
 The first destination
within the cortex is the
primary visual cortex in
the occipital lobe.
 Specifically, projections
from the parvocellular
and magnocellular LGN
layers enter layer 4
within the six-layered
cortex.
Primary Visual Cortex (Striate Cortex or V1)
• The V1 contains a map that is retinotopically organized:
• Neighboring cells in an V1 receive input from neighboring
ganglion cells in the retina, so they code for neighboring
regions of the visual world, preserving the spatial organization
of light patterns in the world.
• Cortical magnification factor - much more of primary visual
cortex is devoted to representing information from the center
of the visual field than from the periphery
Visual Areas beyond the Striate
Cortex
• Striate cortex provides a
representation of numerous
features of the visual world, but
that information must be further
processed and transformed before
it can be fully useful in
understanding and acting upon the
world
• Figure illustrates the location of
several of additional regions,
named V2, V3, and V4, V5 in the
macaque monkey brain.
• We do not really know the
functions of all these areas.
• Area V5 has been linked to motion
perception
Dorsal and ventral streams for visual information
• The striate cortex projects both “downward,” (ventrally), in
the brain toward the inferior temporal cortex, and also
upwards (dorsally), in the brain toward the parietal lobe
• As information travels along either of these two pathways out
of the striate cortex, it undergoes further transformations to
serve the goals of higher level vision.
Dorsal and ventral streams for visual information
 Processing that occurs along these two paths, the ventral and
dorsal paths, is thought to serve two main goals of vision:
1. identifying objects (“what” function) – ventral path
2. representing spatial locations (“where” function) - dorsal
path
Occipital Lobe
Area No17 - Primary
Secondary - 18,
19,20, 21-
 "the eyes are windows of the
soul,"
Image formation is a phenomenon
that takes place in the eye,
vision, the interpretation of the
image as a representation of the
real world, occurs in the brain.

Primary Visual cortex - Striate Cortex -V1

Direct visual signals come into the primary cortex, which
is located in the occiptal region. The fovea, the region of
the retina with the highest visual acuity, sends signals
directly into the primary cortex
Secondary visual cortex receives signals secondarily: for
analysis with respect to motion, shape, position, etc. via
intra-cortical pathways
•I,II,III – thin, contains Pyramidal
cells – Supra granular layer
contain many excitatory projection neurons
that send axons to extrastriate cortical
regions

•IV – thickest –contains stellate

cells – Granular layer
4A, 4B, 4Ca, and 4Cb. Layers 4Ca and 4Cb
are the major recipients of LGN innervation

•V and VI – thin layers –

Infragranular layer
contain many excitatory projection neurons
that innervate the LGNd to provide feedback
to this relay area
Receptive field axis orientation:
The orientation of a stimulus that is most
effective in evoking a response

Types of Cortical cells: based on receptive field

•Simple cells

•Complex Cells
Simple cells:
•Found in layer IV of primary visual cortex
•form the first relay station within visual cortex
•Receptive field are arranged in parallel bands of on and
off regions
•Help in detection of orientation of each line or border

Complex cells:
•Found in layers below and above layer IV of areas 17,18
and 19
•Detection of lines, bars and edges , when they are
moving
•Binocular input

Feature Detectors: simple and complex cells – perception

of orientation and movement of the objects
Orientation columns

•Vertical grouping of cells

with identical orientation
specificity

•Several million vertical

columns of neuronal cells

•Orientation preferences
of neighboring column
differ in systematic way
Ocular Dominance
columns
•Group of orientation
columns receiving
information from both the
eyes alternately
•Aid in perception of
depth
Colour blobs
Peg shaped regions
interspersed among the
primary visual columns –
concerned with colour
vision
Convergence

•Number of cells decrease from rods to complex

cells

•Retinal ganglion cells and LGN cells detect

brightness and contrast

•Simple and complex cells delineate linear

orientation

•With each level there is an improvement in the

precision of identification of the object
Parallel Processing

•From retina to visual cortex – two parallel

pathways – X and Y

•Y Pathway survey large field and enables us to

form a rough sketch

•X pathway examines small bits of the visual field

at a time – fills the details
Agnosia

•Cannot name the object

•Cannot name the shape/colour/texture etc
•Defect in perceiving the movement of the object
•Lesions in parietal connections of the occipital
cortex – Anton’s syndrome
•Involvement of association areas of the cortex
•Temporal cortex
•Speech areas
•Lesion in striate cortex – patient is aware of his
visual disorder
•Pupillary reflexes are normal in these disorders